Marinetti 1914

F.T. Marinetti, in his manifesto "Dynamic and synoptic declamation", detailed a performance at the Doré gallery (28 april 1914) in London:

"Dynamically and synoptically I declaimed several passages from my ZANG TUMB TUUMB (the Siege of Adrianople). On the table in front of me I had a telephone, some boards, and matching hammers that permitted me to imitate the Turkish general's orders and the sounds of artillery and machine-gun fire.

Blackboards had been set up in three parts of the hall, to which in succession I either ran or walked, to sketch rapidly an analogy with chalk. My listeners, as they turned to follow me in all my evolutions, participated, their entire bodies enflamed with emotion, in the violet effects of the battle described by my words-in-freedom.

There were two big drums in a distant room, from which the painter nevinson, my colleague, produced the boom of cannon, when i told him to do so over the telephone.

The swelling interest of the english audience became frantic enthusiasm when I achieved the greatest dynamism by alternating the bulgarian song "Sciumi maritza" with the dazzle of my images and the clamor of the onamatopoeic artillery.

Source:
Marinetti: Selected writings, 1972, quoted in: Douglas Kahn, "Noise Water Meat", 1999 MIT press, p.61.

Related:
Futurism

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